To Sit In A Poppy Field
by NiffAreForever
Summary: It's hard to imagine that the peaceful graveyard was once No-Man's Land; now, the white crosses instead stand witness to the chance meeting of two boys mixed up in it all… WW2!Niff AU Warning: Major Character Death


**A/N: So, just a slightly random oneshot for you because I got the idea in my head and just had to write it down - I know I should be working on _A Thief's Heart_ but I'm a little stuck with that story right now and I'm not sure whether to continue it or not :/**

**Now, this story is inspired by the song _Green Fields of France_ (or _Willy McBride _or _No-Man's Land_) by Eric Bogle, and the version I have in mind is that by The Fureys and Davey Arthur - I haven't included the lyrics in this fic, although I have put directions like '[chorus]' and '[1st verse]' in just to show where I think sections of the song fit. **

**I would really recommend that you listen to this song while reading this fic because it just adds some atmosphere and emotion - you can either just play it on repeat, or you can pause it and play it when you get to a direction, or you can either just listen when you've finished reading, but I would really really really recommend that you play it at some point because it's very emotive.**

**Of course, the soldier in the song is named Willy McBride, the soldier here isn't - you'll see what he is called in a bit :)**

**Warning: Major character death; description and heavy allusion to war; injury.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Glee and I do not own _Green Fields of France_.**

* * *

The sun blazed high in the summer sky, beating down endless rays upon the field below; the soft breeze making the bright flowers dance in the light. There was, for once, quiet upon the countryside, with only the harmonious song of a bird as it flew from branch to branch in search of a companion.

He came up the hillside slowly, wearied by the walk and having no energy left to put even the faintest spring in his step. His leg pained him now, much more than it had done barely moments before; in fact, it had taken several minutes before he'd even noticed that something was wrong. He didn't know where he was going, nor where it would lead him, he simply knew that wherever it was, it didn't matter. It no longer mattered if anyone found him or asked him where he was going, for it was not possible to give an answer.

All he knew was that he wanted to rest, and he would take the first opportunity to do so.

He had lost his gun some time ago, the rounds exhausted and it had become a useless and empty shell of metal. He'd discarded it in a wood, he thought, but the memory was hazy. He had no recollection of where he'd left his gas mask, nor of where his helmet had disappeared to, leaving his bright blonde hair to become dishevelled by the wind.

Instead, he focused on the shimmer of white at the top of the field, glinting under the sunlight. It almost signified surrender; and that's what he wanted.

It was only when he finally came upon the flickers of white that he realised they were white crosses. He sighed, it was all rather ironic really.

He sat down heavily beside the nearest one, apologising to the cold gravestone as he did so. He didn't think the man under the soil would mind too much; they were almost in the same position he supposed. He studied the name carved into it curiously; one Nicholas Duval.

"Not many people come up here anymore," a sudden voice interrupted the solitude, and he jerked his head up, coming face to face with a brunette boy, about the same age as him, who was seated a few feet in front of him.

"I didn't see you come up," he said, sounding rather startled, for he was sure that he would have noticed if someone had been approaching.

The brunette shrugged.

"No matter," he said, "I've always been rather quiet, I suppose."

There was a short silence before the blonde spoke up.

"My name's Jeff," he said, "Jeff Sterling, well, it's technically Jeffrey, but no one's ever called me that apart from my grandparents; not even my parents do."

The other boy laughed.

"It's nice to meet you, Jeff," he said with a smile.

Jeff studied the other boy closely for a few moments before speaking again.

"Your uniform," he said, slowly, as though he couldn't quite place something, "It's a little different to mine. It looks more like Service Dress than Battle Dress, I mean, unless you're an officer?"

The other boy frowned and looked between the two of them, as though considering this himself.

"I'm no officer," he said, "I haven't seen enough action." He grinned. "Nor am I rich enough. No, this is just what they sent me out in, shortages with the conscription and sign-ups and all that. I've seen men come out here in worse, you know."

There was another silence between them as Jeff turned his attention back to the gravestone beside him.

"I wonder whether he ever found himself in a similar situation to us?" the blonde murmured, tracing the carved letters with his fingers.

"What?" the brunette asked, looking confused.

"I mean, the boy this gravestone belongs to," Jeff clarified, "Nicholas Duval."

"Ah," the brunette nodded, and his lips quirked up into a curious smile, "Let's call him, Nick, shall we? I think he would have preferred that to Nicholas, I imagine, like you, only his grandparents called him Nicholas."

Jeff chuckled a little.

"You seem awfully sure," he said, "But alright, Nick it is." He paused for a moment before continuing. "It says here that he was nineteen when he died, that seems an awful waste of a young life."

"And how old are you, Jeff?"

A faint spot of colour appeared in the blonde's otherwise pale cheeks.

"I turned twenty last week," he admitted, before coughing awkwardly and moving on. "1916? That was the Battle of the Somme, wasn't it?"

The brunette nodded.

"The Somme offensive," he agreed.

Jeff continued to trace the cross with the tips of his fingers.

"I hope he didn't suffer," he said softly and rather earnestly, "I don't know him, but I feel as though I wouldn't want him to suffer."

"I don't imagine he knew much about it," the other said with a rueful smile, "I imagine that it was all over rather quickly."

_[1st verse]_

"Do you think they honoured him?" Jeff mused aloud, "Do you think him, and all of these men here, were put to rest with great ceremony?"

The brunette regarded him curiously for a moment.

"Aren't all of the fallen honoured?" he asked, as though quite disbelieving that the other boy could even suggest that they might not have been.

Jeff's mind wandered to the thoughts of the unknown soldiers who had given their lives for their countries and yet the country had found that there was no one left to remember them, let alone identify them. It was a sad fact of the lost generation that Britain had suffered through the Great War, and the thought pained the blonde boy deeply; to have your name and identity lost in the depths of history, with nothing to allow your memory to carry on. It seemed even more final than death itself.

_[chorus]_

"There should always be someone out there who remembers," Jeff answered the brunette's question finally. He turned his attention back to the gravestone. "Do you think he – I mean, Nick – do you think that he left anyone behind?"

"Anyone?" the brunette raised an eyebrow.

"A sweetheart," the blonde suggested, "Or someone like that."

Something akin to sadness swept into the other boy's eyes as he spoke, much to Jeff's confusion.

"I think he had loving parents," he said finally, "Yes, I think they loved him very much. I think they kept a photograph of him up on the mantelpiece, one of him in his uniform, so that to them he's forever nineteen."

Jeff didn't question the other boy's surety, he just thought about his own parents and the sepia coloured print they kept above the fire; the one they'd had taken when he'd first tried on his uniform, it was nearly two years old now, but he'd barely changed.

He couldn't imagine being reduced to a face in a frame, merely a decoration to be pointed out or to be ignored tactfully so as not to bring up any painful memories. Fading slowly until the print curled at the edges, yellowed and torn.

_[2nd verse]  
[chorus]_

"But it all happened many years ago," the boy said suddenly, gazing around himself at the green of the trees and the fields, and the way that the red poppies danced in the breeze. "It's all so quiet now."

Jeff nodded slowly. He supposed that there in the graveyard it was possible to believe that the world was at peace and they were merely two boys sitting in the warmth of the summer sun and talking of the past; but he would never be able to shake the knowledge that barely any distance away, there was still as much bloodshed as there had been just over twenty years ago.

"They don't know that the war ended," he sighed, "For them, the fallen, this will forever be no-man's land, and the crosses are a testament to that fact. The gas, the barbed wire, it's all gone, but they don't know that."

"I think they do," the brunette replied, to Jeff's surprise. "I think they're always watching the world, keeping an eye on the people down here. But their voices have been lost forever; lost to a world where man gives no consideration to his brothers. They were condemned that way."

_[3rd verse]  
[chorus]_

"Do think they knew?" Jeff's voice was barely above a soft whisper now, as he considered the fact that many of these men were sent off to war to fight in a campaign which had merely fed them to the field guns and the artillery shells. It was a war which the commanders had been ill-prepared for.

"Knew what?"

"Knew that when they answered the call for men that it would end this way?"

The other boy sighed.

"It was all to be a great adventure," he began, and the far away look in his eyes made Jeff feel as though he wasn't really there at all, as though he was too absorbed in the past, even if he didn't look old enough to have been born any earlier than the first few years of the 1920s. "Just like going to play a game of football. Why, many thought that they were merely going to have a bit of fun, and they'd all be home for Christmas."

"They can't have known that it would all happen again, can they?" Jeff said, "They can't have known that the suffering and the pain would happen again just twenty years later."

"I don't think anyone thought it would happen again," the brunette answered, "And it'll happen again after this war; again and again and again and again."

_[4th verse]_

Finally, the other boy gave a sigh and there was a shift in Jeff's peripheral vision as he said something about being on his way, but the blonde was suddenly too preoccupied in the cold that was creeping over him to even notice the brunette properly. Even forgetting that he'd never bothered to ask him his name.

It took him several moments to realise he had gone, but when he looked out across the hillside and the trees that marked the boundaries, he failed to spot him anywhere. Turning his head to see if he'd gone in the opposite direction, he was met only by the silent crosses and the warm breeze.

Curious.

But it didn't matter now. Nothing mattered now.

Shifting, Jeff glanced down at his leg for the first time since he'd really started to feel a pain there. It wasn't something that had needed considering or examining, it was simply something that had happened, and something that could not be remedied.

To the unobservant eye it might almost have seemed as if the blonde had merely stepped accidentally into a stream as he'd been walking, but he himself knew the dark stain and damp liquid was something entirely more serious than that.

Blood.

Not that it mattered now.

The cold of the cross behind him seemed warmer now, as though he was the colder being, and he leaned back, trying to savour some of the heat.

He was lucky to have made it this far. The bullet wound in his leg had either missed an artery and instead severed a number of other blood vessels, or it had only nicked the artery, and he'd taken this long to bleed out.

Maybe he should have sought medical attention?

Too late now.

_[chorus]_

He felt his eyes falling closed; the need to rest pulling him slowly into unconsciousness. He fought it for several moments, twisting his body around to gaze once more at the name on the gravestone behind him.

Nicholas Duval.

He smiled, and let his eyes fall shut for the last time.

* * *

It was summer, and the warm summer sun shone down on a green field filled with the red of the poppies, the soft breeze making them sway peacefully.

Slowly, he blinked his eyes open, the light surprising him for a moment until he realised where he was. He knew this field, he had left it merely moments ago to an everlasting sleep in which he could finally rest. He immediately checked his leg, but to his surprise found that the bottom of the trousers were no longer stained and torn, instead, they looked like they had done the first time he had put them on.

"What happened?" he asked softly, not expecting an answer when there was a quiet chuckle from beside him.

"Don't worry about that now," a familiar voice said, and suddenly a head of brunette hair swam into view.

The mysterious boy from the field with the strange uniform grinned down at him.

"I don't think we were properly introduced earlier," he said, holding out a hand for Jeff to shake.

The blonde sat up in confusion, grasping the other's hand firmly.

"Yes," he said slowly, "I told you my name but you never told me yours."

The brunette smiled.

"Nicholas Duval," he said, "Though I would prefer it if you called me Nick."

_[chorus]_

* * *

**A/N: So, I hope you might have enjoyed that and it wasn't too sad - I really hope that you listened to the song while reading, because that's what adds the emotion!**

**Thank you for reading, and please leave a review to tell me what you thought :)**

**Historical Points:**

**1\. The graveyard being described here are the countless ones which can be found across the areas of the Western Front, which were set up by organisations in both Britain and France for the soldiers who were killed in the First World War , and later ones were also set up for the Second World War. Although temporary wooden crosses were first put up in the 1920s, these were replaced in the 1939s by the white crosses and gravestones which still remain today.**

**2\. The difference between British Service Dress and British Battle Dress is best explained by looking up pictures of both of them and comparing them, but basically, the Service Dress is what was worn in the trenches in WW1 before Battle Dress was introduced for WW2, although officers sometimes continued to wear Service Dress - the bigges difference between the two is that Service Dress has a longer jacket which is not tucked in like the jackets of Battle Dress.**

**3\. The Battle of the Somme began on the 1st July 1916 and the outcome of the battle was one of the highest in the entire war, although relatively little seemed to have been gained from it. It was also the first time that tanks were used.**


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